If you love bad movies and you haven't yet seen The Room, do yourself a favor and watch it as soon as possible. Like any bad movie, its enjoyability is greatly enhanced by sharing it with friends. There's something about a line like "you can keep your comments in your pocket!" That needs to be answered by a shared look that says 'you heard that, too, right?'

When it became evident that some of my friends hadn't yet enjoyed The Room, I rounded them up, along with some who already knew and loved the movie, and SHOT THEM ALL. Just kidding, I rounded them up and threw a viewing party!

"This is a beautiful party. You invited all my friends- good thinking!"

Nom!

In The Room, the character Lisa is shown ordering pizza over the phone: one half pineapple and Canadian bacon, and one half pesto with artichoke, easy on the cheese. That's a seriously weird combo- why not get two small pizzas if you and your partner have such divergent tastes? It gets even less sensical, too- a few minutes later she and Johnny are shown happily eating their pizza, which is now your bog-standard pepperoni pie. Transubstantiation! Does The Room contain a covert religious message?

Rather than making them attempt to maneuver around some half-pesto/half-tomato sauce chimera, I showed some mercy on my guests by simply making three whole pizzas. I was super lazy beyond that, though- I just rocked some pizza dough and sauce from Trader Joe's! The pesto was the classic pesto recipe from Isa Moskowitz's Vegan With a Vengeance, a recipe I love to make in big batches during basil season and freeze in single-portion sizes. I opted for Follow Your Heart mozzarella shreds, Tofurky pepperoni, and Yves brand Canadian bacon.

As for dessert, I was considering a birthday cake, as the climax of the film takes place on main character Johnny's birthday and immediately following his surprise party. But I far prefer the scene where Johnny meets his friend in a cafe, the owners of which are aggressively pushing cheesecake on all of their customers. In fact, they're so obsessed with getting their customers to try the cheesecake that they evidently forget to collect money from said customers in exchange for the food and drink provided. So I instead opted to make a lemon cheesecake with a gingerbread crust. It was a (dairy- & gluten-)FREE cheesecake.

One of the more dog-eared pages in my collection of cookbooks is the Lemon Cheesecake recipe in Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's The Joy of Vegan Baking. I used some Mi-Del gluten-free gingerbread cookies to make the Graham Cracker Crust from the same cookbook. Did you know lemon and gingerbread together are a dynamite combo? I did not, myself, until recently, and now this cheesecake is my 'little black dress' of desserts: simple and easy, yet reliably stunning. I love how easily this cake can be made gluten-free in addition to being vegan, so I can share the sweet love with my friends and family who are gluten-intolerant.

Quaff!

When Johnny and Lisa are enjoying their pizza, they probably haven't noticed that it wasn't at all what they ordered because they are getting blasted on scotchka. Yes, that's right: scotchka. It's exactly what it sounds like, scotch and vodka.

Obviously no sane individual would actually drink this, so it was perfect to serve to the caliber of person who will be friends with me. I want to say I searched intensively, high and low, for the perfect cocktail recipe incorporating scotchka. In truth I just did some lackluster poking around on Google. At first, I was tempted to go with the King of Poland, because The Room's auteur, Tommy Wiseau, is most likely Polish (he is notoriously secretive regarding his origins and insists, through a thick European accent, that he is from New Orleans). But the King of Poland is pretty much straight up scotchka (the name comes from a particular brand of Polish vodka that's meant to be used) with a twist of lemon- not very enticing in and of itself.

Enter the Whizz-Doodle, a concoction from classic 1930 mixing guide The Savoy Cocktail Book. A local San Francisco blogger's revision of it caught my eye, and, due to my own substitutions and alterations, I decided it needed to be re-named. Gentlefolk, I give you:

Mix the vodka, scotch, bitters, and honee/agave until the latter is dissolved. Shake with ice, then strain into a glass. With a spoon, whip up the Coco Whip until smooth, and scoop a generous dollop onto the top of the drink. Top with chocolate shavings. The reviews all around: surprisingly good!

Misc Notes:

Those ingredients are just what I used; I wasn't compensated by any of those companies to use them, and I'm sure if you're a hobby mixologist with a refined palate you may wish to make some changes!

Fee Brothers Bitters contain glycerin; I confirmed through Barnivore that it is plant-derived.

Although this ends up being quite palatable, remember that it packs quite the wallop. I didn't brace myself properly before taking my first sip and nearly fell over!

Look smart!

The Room is a movie sodden with tired, gender-specific movie clichés: Lisa is the movie's villain, and although she's not exactly humanitarian of the year, her greatest crime is, ultimately, exercising her sexual agency. Part of the fun of playing along with the The Room in one of the midnight theater screenings is seeing that ridiculous binary writ large, and as clumsily as everything else in the movie. It's like straight drag, if such a thing makes sense. Men toss footballs and give each other high-fives that turn into awkward shoulder-bump hugs. Women look Sexy/Hot/Beautiful and receive roses while inwardly scheming. I helped my guests get into the minds of the characters by giving them some props- red roses, OF COURSE, because I wanted all my guests to go directly home and have excruciatingly unarousing sex punctuated by nervous laughter. I also had a kid's foam football and a tray full of courtesy sunglasses, to be worn on the forehead while playing with said football and/or ordering said flowers and greeting middle-aged dachshunds (the closest I could get to an elderly pug on short notice).

roses/nailz

Now, I'm not judging Lisa's French tips, I'm just saying they really date the movie. My friend's wedding album has some pretty dated pictures of my bridesmaid nails, taken upon myself completely of my own accord. So I'm really laughing with Lisa rather than at her when I put out some bodacious press-on nails for those who wished to play along.

I do have a hard time, though, not judging Lisa for going blonde and not bringing her eyebrows along for the ride. Lisa's thick, dark brows, when coupled with her bleached hair, overwhelm her face and become a comical focal point. I made thick brows for my guests using black felt and double-stick tape, and they were a hit! The end result was more Devo than Lisa, but it was a good first foray into the fine art form of making silly things out of felt to stick to my face (and those of my dogs).

If you'd like to host your own The Room party, or if perhaps you're feeling dissatisfied with the lack of variety in your personal eyebrow wardrobe, here's a quick tutorial on how to make your own felt eyebrows at home!

1. Trace! 2. Double-stick tape! 3. Trim! 4. Wax paper!

Q: Are we not men? A: We are dachshunds.

Most flattering.

Obviously you can enjoy The Room without all these extra props, but what's the point in that? At any rate, if you absolutely must watch this movie without pizza, scotchka, roses, or insane eyebrows, please do so, but at your own risk. If you've enjoyed The Room and want to know more about it, including a San Franciscan's perspective on the movie's setting, head on over to my other blog, Nortons' Movie Maps, to read my The Room guide!

This is amazing, it looks like such a fun night.
I just went over and read your round up of the movie, which I have never seen, but it looks and sounds like a glorious train wreck! Even just watching the trailer resulted in giggles all round.
I shall have to remember 'keep your comments in your pocket' for just the right moment.